a late hour of the night; but information of the conspiracy having been given by one of the slaves of the Blosii, the gates were suddenly closed by the command of the proconsul, and all the soldiers had been assembled under arms, on a signal given all who were implicated in the guilt were seized, and, after rigorous examination, were condemned and executed, informers were rewarded with liberty and ten thousand asses each.  The people of Nuceria and Acerra, who complained that they had no where to dwell, Acerra being partly burnt, and Nuceria demolished, Fulvius sent to Rome to the senate.  Permission was given to the people of Acerra to rebuild what had been destroyed by fire.  The people of Nuceria were removed to Atella, as they preferred; the people of Atella being ordered to migrate to Calatia.  Among the many and important events, sometimes prosperous, sometimes adverse, which occupied men’s thoughts, not even the citadel of Tarentum was forgotten.  Marcus Ogulnius and Publius Aquillius went into Etruria as commissioners to buy up corn to be conveyed to Tarentum; and one thousand men out of the city troops, an equal number of Romans and allies, were sent to the same place, together with the corn, for its protection.

4.  The summer was now on the close, and the time for the election of consuls drew nigh; but a letter from Marcellus, in which he stated, that it would not be for the interest of the state that he should depart a single step from Hannibal, whom he was severely pressing while retreating before him and evading an engagement, had excited anxiety, lest they must either recall the consul from the war at that time when he was most actively employed, or consuls should not be appointed for the year.  The best course appeared to be to recall in preference the consul Valerius from Sicily, although he was out of Italy.  A letter was sent to him by Lucius Manlius, the city praetor, by order of the senate, together with the letter of Marcus Marcellus, the consul, that he might learn from it what reason the senate had for recalling him from his province rather than his colleague.  Much about this time ambassadors came to Rome from king Syphax with accounts of the successful battles which he had fought with the Carthaginians.  They assured the senate that there was no people to whom the king was more hostile than the Carthaginians, and none to whom he was more friendly than the Romans.  They said, that “he had before sent ambassadors into Spain, to Cneius and Publius Cornelius, the Roman generals, but that he was now desirous to solicit the friendship of the Romans, as it were, from the fountain-head itself.”  The senate not only returned a gracious answer to the ambassadors, but also sent as ambassadors to the king, with presents, Lucius Genucius, Publius Paetelius, and Publius Popillius.  The presents they carried were a purple gown and vest, an ivory chair, and a bowl formed out of five pounds of gold.  They received orders to proceed forthwith